fish predation

[lonedigga 23]

Had a call today of someone who got up yesterday morning to find the nylon netting over their fish pond had been torn and quite a few fish taken.Their 1st thought was a heron so the pond was covered with a tarpaulin till the mesh could be replaced with something stronger.However when the cover was taken off this morning something had got underneath and killed the remaining fish and left some on the garden with just the heads eaten,I suppose the obvious culprit would be a mink so i'm going to set a cage trap tonight baited with 1 of the dead fish,but having no previous experience in trapping mink is there a better bait i could use? Cheers LD

[watchman 256]

otter maybe, just a thought

[OldTrapCollector 377]

Otter would be my bet too - and there's nothing you can do about those!!

 

OTC

[dogs-n-natives 1,182]

Had almost the exact same call myself, and it was an otter in my case.

[lonedigga 23]

Thanks for the replies,otter had crossed my mind but as its a residential area(not in town but not rural either,what you'd call suburbia i suppose)at least a couple of miles from any major waterways i opted for a mink.Is what i've described typical of otters? I know the nearest good size river holds a healthy population,Just didn't know if they'd venture that far off the main rivers this time of year..

[cornishtrapper 3]

place a small electric fence around the pond about four inches off the ground

[dogs-n-natives 1,182]

place a small electric fence around the pond about four inches off the ground